


In the Woods Somewhere

by medusaegis



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Indra backstory, figured the northwest US needed some sort of post-apocalyptic grounders too!, surprise she's from a different nation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusaegis/pseuds/medusaegis
Summary: No one is prepared for the plague when it comes. Their leaders and healers: gone.  Her parents: gone. She picks up sword and mortar and pestle, and leads her people eastward.





	In the Woods Somewhere

The rains came at the usual time that year, that was what made them so deadly. No one could see it coming, no one expected it. The plague was invisible, incomprehensible to a people who had never known such grief. An entire nation lost. Ten thousand warriors, twenty thousand civilians, an uncountable number of children: reduced to four hundred. We were spread out and broken in the ruins of our empire. Disoriented and adrift in the tide of sickness that had fallen over us. 

Three quarters of the survivors had been sick. Three hundred of us had barely made it past the rains. But we made it, the rest of the clan did not. There was not enough water in the rivers to send all the bodies to rest, those of us still alive were too weak to carry anyone to their funeral rafts. We lay where we had been struck down; some of us in our beds, some on the floor of our homes. Others were not so lucky. They took the illness in the streets and collapsed amid the horsedung and sewage. Old hay stuck into their sides and flies buzzed around their heads, but they could do no more than moan as the sickness ran its course through them. 

The plague takes five days to ravage the body. On the sixth day you will open your mouth to the rain or you will be dead. Another seven days for the sickness to leave. Twenty more before you can feel whole enough to function normally, and even then your body is filled with the gaping holes of what you have lost. Your cheeks are hollowed out, your limbs are bony and stiff, and when you lift up your shirt it looks like someone has taken a spoon and scraped out the pieces of flesh between your ribs. 

My people are naturally dark. In health we glow like the sun, but the plague turned us ashy grey. Even the hundred of us who managed to survive without catching sick became pallid and lackluster. We who used to be a gemstone people, an obsidian nation. The plague turned us into basalt and gabbro. We were a glass people turned into dusty rocks.

Over thirty thousand of us welcomed the rains when they came; four hundred were there to slog our way through the mud when it stopped. I cannot say it enough. We were  _ hundreds _ out of  _ thousands _ . Some of us were somebodies; generals or village chieftains. Important people. But most of us were nobodies; villagers from the borders, laborers from the cities, traders, travelers, the lowest of the low and the most average of the middle. Suddenly we were everybody.

I had eleven years when it happened. My parents were among the first in the village to fall ill. They died in the night while I slept pressed between them. When I woke in the morning I did not even feel the chill of their deaths. I snuck out of our home to go exploring in the woods, and I found my mother’s sister crying on the doorstep when I returned, a gaggle of villagers spersed out around her. In front of her three candles were pressed into the mud, flickering solemnly in the humid air. 

“ _ Akla _ ?” I stood alone in the path between our hut and the next. My feet were bare and muddy, my hands caked in dirt and grime. I was shivering, but no one seemed to notice it. My aunt looked up at me then, and the expression I found in her eyes has haunted me ever since. 

I should have paid attention to her eyes. Our people say that by looking into another’s eyes it is possible to see your fate. I looked into my aunt’s eyes and saw anguish. It frightened me. She looked so old then, more than her thirty years. Her eyes were red from tears, and her fingers opened and closed at her sides, grasping at nothing. 

“Indra,” she said. “You are  _ alive _ .”  

I nodded, for I knew not what to say to that. I could feel death about me, it chilled the air and caused the warm rain to steam as it hit the ground. 

“Come here.” She said, barely able to beckon to me with her shaking hands. 

I did not want to go to her. She looked like death incarnate with her anguished eyes and bent limbs. I was cold and dirty, but at least I was alive. 

The villagers parted before me, like grasses parting in the wind. Some greater force moved them out of my way and called me thence. It was a funeral march. I put one foot in front of the other until I reached her outstretched hand. I did not dare look into my home. The stench that floated out of it was enough to warn me against the action, but  _ Akla _ made me look.

“Indra,” she said, as if she could not say it enough. Did she think I would forget my name if I was not reminded of it? “You are  _ wonchil _ now.” 

_ Wonchil.  _ Our word for an orphan. It means  _ one child _ . Orphans are the children of the people; they are given the same status in our lands, no matter their previous standing. Every orphan is the same; parentless, directionless.  _ Wonchilen _ are worth nothing. Suddenly I understood the pain in my  _ akla’s _ eyes. 

I stared at the three candles that stood at my feet, sputtering and struggling in the drizzle. I wished their flames would consume me. I didn’t want to be Indra. I didn’t want to be  _ wonchil _ . I wanted to be fire. Fire meant power and strength. Fire meant immunity. Maybe fire would have saved my parents. 

“Indra,” my aunt said a third time. “You must tend to them.” 

To my parents, she meant, to what was left of them. It was my duty as their only child to prepare their bodies for the funeral. 

I didn’t want to go back into my home for anything. Just looking at the canvas walls set my stomach to roiling. I went inside. 

They had not been dead for more than a few hours, but the flies had already found them. The crows would be on them next, I imagined. The birds would pick their corpses and then fly away, carrying the souls of my parents with them. And it was my duty to prepare the bodies. 

The hut would need to be burned, and everything inside it. Sickness cannot be allowed to spread, or else our people would have died long ago. 

I went back outside where my  _ akla _ sat in front of the candles. Most of the villagers had dispersed except for a few curious children who stood watching me. 

“Indra,” my aunt said. I ignored her, picking up the third candle, which had been meant for me. I went back inside. 

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to be  _ wonchil _ . Even though my heart was two souls lighter, it felt like a weight had been dropped on my shoulders. The rains had come and soaked me through and said  _ bear this burden _ and then they had taken my parents. 

I went through the entire hut, searching through our pots and bowls and our lone chest of robes. I picked up each of my mother’s trinkets on the table and flung them at the wall. Then I stepped on them just to make sure they were broken. The pieces cut through the skin of my feet, but I did not stop to put on my shoes, nor to wash the mud off my skin in our washing basin. It was still full of the water my mother had set out the night before. 

I cried as I did these things. They were uncontrollable tears, the kind that feel like justice when they fall, and yet each track of water on my cheeks was a testament to my failure. What kind of child goes to play in the woods while her parents are dying? 

I knew the answer: a  _ wonchil _ . 

I looked to other things when I had smashed all of my mother’s trinkets. I took the bowls and threw them at the ceiling. I lifted the washing basin high over my head so that my muscles shook under the weight of the water inside it. I let it fall and stepped back, watching the clay shards bounce in the water and knock off my already bloodied feet. Mud and blood look the same in the dark. 

It’s a wonder my aunt didn’t come inside to see what I was doing. I must have made a racket, throwing my family’s possessions around and screaming like a baby, but no one came to stop me. It was the first lesson of orphanhood; no one cares what you do, as long as you are only affecting yourself. 

The rain was pouring when I stopped, and I could hear thunder bellowing in the distance.  _ Let it wash away this pain, _ I thought,  _ or let me drown in it.  _ But in the end the rain ended nothing. The candle I had taken was still burning on the table, and the untouched corpses of my parents lay entwined in the bed, the furs of the animals my father had killed were wrapped around them. I was lost and without guidance. My morals were gone, and my common sense. I picked up the candle in my hand and stared at it. I let the wax drip down the side, onto my fingers. The white was stark against my dark skin, and the burn was soothing; it was something righteous. The candle was just a stump now, after so many hours of burning. I set it on my parents’ bed in the spot where I used to lie between them. Then I ran outside where my  _ akla _ no longer waited. 

All the rains in the world could not stop a raging fire once it started.

_ Akla  _ screamed at me when she saw what I did, but by the time the villagers came with buckets the hut was already consumed, my parents’ bodies with it. The candles out  front were blobs of melted wax in the rain. The heat of the fire seemed to blister my skin, even as the rain chilled it.

I was no stranger to death, but this was the first time I really knew it. 

“You are a child!”  _ Akla  _ shouted.  _ “Branwoda goufa!”  _ A stupid child. She was right; I was the child who let my parents die. 

“ _ Branwoda Akla _ _!_ ” I screamed back. “Why are they dead _? _ ”  

The woods had been lovely that morning. Each green leaf dripping with liquid crystals. I had seen a crystal once, it reflected the sun when  Oss  turned it in his grip. My mother had bade me look at it. She likened it to water. 

“ _ Emo chain op seim we _ .” She said.  _ They shine in the same way _ . But water is more precious. I learned the lesson well. 

The water in the forest had seemed like a good price for sneaking out of bed, but all the water in the

world could not bring my parents back, not even my tears. 

_ Akla _ came back with Oss behind her. She pointed first at the burning building and then at me. Her lips were moving, but I could hear no words over the crackle of the fire and the patter of the rain until she approached me. 

“Awful girl!” she spat. “Now they will rot unrested!” 

“They’ll never rot!” She had to understand. That was why they were burning. Ashes don’t rot; they rejoin the world. I couldn’t have borne to touch their bodies, to send them off on the raft. It would have been confirmation of my new name.  _ Wonchil.  _ I had lived eleven years with the love and comfort of my family. I could not see myself become like the urchins that lived on the outskirts of the village. Those grim children that are like moss, soaking up every ounce of sustenance they could get their hands on. They lived in the dark and the wet, nothing else would accept them. 

Oss came between us then, his gait was slow and his gaze was heavy. Behind him  _ Akla _ was cursing me, next to him the fire raged, threatening to leap out and singe his shirt, if he hadn’t been already so drenched from the rain. 

His wet clothes stuck to him, outlining the shape of his body. He was well-muscled, I noticed, and I knew like all the others in our village that there was a foot-long scar nestled into the skin along his abdomen. It was why he was  _ Oss;  _ he had bled for us. His strength allowed us to be weak, and his wisdom allowed us to be foolish. 

There was kindness in his eyes as he came toward me, and as he bent down to my level there was a softness in his movements that I was unused to seeing in the war-hardened leaders of our village. 

“Indra,” he said with his battle-jagged voice. “Why did you burn your home?” 

Faced with Oss’ gentle stare I began to feel like I had not made the best decision for my parents. The failure welled up inside me again and like last time I could not stop it from overflowing. Now there was nothing I could destroy, my past was already burning. 

“I don’t want to be  _ wonchil _ .” 

Oss, the man I looked up to more than anything. He was as familiar to me as the rest of the village, yet at the same time as foreign as the traders who came to us from the east. In looks he was the same as us; his skin was dark, his hair was short, and his marks were the same as ours. The difference was in his eyes; where I expected to see the residue of many years of love and joy, there was instead the story of a thousand losses, ten thousand battles, and thrice that many tears shed. I didn’t realize then that our Oss was only twenty-four years old, to me he was as old as the sun, and the pain in his eyes reinforced the truth of his antiquity. 

There were many things I didn’t understand then, Oss was one of them. 

“You are  _ wonchil _ whether you want to be or not.” Oss said, I began to protest, but he did not let me. “That does not mean you will be alone, Indra, you can live with your  _ akla  _ and your cousins _. _ ”

I stamped my foot like a toddler. “No! I don’t want to live there!” 

“What am I to do about that? You have already burned your house down!”  _ Oss _ was firm, and just then I hated him for it. I wanted him to tell me that my parents would come back to me, that everything would be as it had been. I wanted him to give me the impossible. 

The drum of the rain increased, pounding on and around us like a continuous sheet. For once my hair was almost flat on my head, and I could feel every drop of water that touched my skin. Every second felt like I was being hit by thousands of pebbles, it was a wonder to me that the rain didn’t draw blood. 

“ _ Kom hir. _ ”  _ Oss _ beckoned me forward. I shook my head. 

“ _ Branwoda goufa _ .”  _ Akla’s _ voice cut through the downpour. 

“ _ Kom hir _ , Indra!” He was no longer  Oss , he was a  _ gona _ , and disobeyment of his command meant punishment. I waddled forward on my injured feet until I was face to face with him, my nose brushing against his. 

“Help me.” I whispered. 

The  _ gona _ was gone too, now he was a nameless man, a stranger in the rain. He was the gentle hand of fate, pushing me forward and making sure I didn’t flinch. 

“ _ Nou ai na _ .” He whispered back. “I can’t,  _ strikon _ , I can’t.” 

I began to cry. 

“You shouldn’t have pain, _ yongon. _ ” Oss wrapped his arms around my small frame, shielding me from the rain. Something went out of him just then, and I felt the tension leave his body. He sighed. “ _ Ai na sis yu au,  _ I’ll help you,  _ strikon _ . Be my  _ seken _ .” 

“What?” Did he not understand me? I was the definition of pained, what right had he to tell me whether or not I had pain?  _ I  _ was the one who lost her parents,  _ I  _ was the one who was  _ wonchil _ , and now  _ Oss _ talked as if it had not happened. 

“Be my  _ seken _ ,” he repeated. “You can live with me. You don’t have to be  _ wonchil _ .” 

I understood him then. I had lost my family, yes, but I had gained a new future. The impossible had happened;  _ Oss _ would be my new family, my mentor, my leader, and my friend. 

“I don’t have to be alone?” It was too good to be true. 

“ _ Nowe _ .” Never _.  _

It was too good to be true, but I believed him anyway.

* * *

 

 

 When I had seven years my parents took me on a journey. They woke me early on the third morning of spring, before even the birds were awake, and we snuck away in the dawnlight. 

“You’re seven years old. Old enough to go away for awhile.”  _ Nomon _ whispered to me as we walked. The forest was waking up, the sounds of the animals echoed around us and behind us my father was quiet, leading our two horses. 

“Where are we going?” I asked.  _ Nomon _ laughed.

“You will see,” she said.

“How long will it take to get there?” 

“A long time, maybe longer.” 

I tugged on her sleeve, impatient with her answers. 

“ _ Nomi! _ Where are we going?” 

She laughed again and turned to look back at my father. 

“Yifro,” she said with a grin. “Your  _ gada  _ is asking too many questions.” 

_ Nontu _ grinned back at us.

“Calm down _ , strik pauna _ .” He said to me. “Two months travel. We will stay there for some months, and then we will come back.  

I was amazed. Two months! I had never gone so far in my life, I was sure I had never gone so far in any of my past lives, either. Two months of travel in one direction… well surely the land could not stretch for that long! Was there not another sea somewhere on the other side? The way that we could see the long stretch of land from our fishing posts on the bay?

“But where are we going?” I asked after another minute of silence. “You still haven’t told.” 

_ Nontu _ laughed, the horses whinnied, and when I looked at my mother she was struggling to hide her smile.  

“We are going to see your father’s people.” She said. “Where he is from _. _ ”

I tripped over a root turning around to gauge my father’s reaction. His face was a mask of indifference, but he broke into a smile as I attempted to right myself and finally laughed aloud when I lost my footing and wiped out on my bottom. 

“Careful.”  _ Nomon _ muttered to me as she walked past. 

_ Nontu _ reached out to help me up when he approached. I stood with a groan, rubbing my buttocks and dreading the bruise that would form there. 

“We will ride horses later.”  _ Nontu _ grinned. 

“Hmph.” I said.

* * *

 

 

We travelled for six weeks, stopping in a few villages along the way to exchange horses and replenish our supplies. The  _ sleng _ of the people changed the farther we went; the vowels became longer, the sounds more drawn out, and the words slower. 

The people marvelled at our strangely accented speech, but my father grew more and more comfortable at each village we came to. He exchanged words with nearly every family we met, and a few times he even stopped our journey to spend a few days hanging around a particular village. 

We rode during the day, or walked when the terrain was too rough. My parents spoke only in  _ gonasleng  _ as we went, forcing me to pick up the language faster than I would have liked. 

“You will be a warrior someday, Indra.”  _ Nomon _ would tell me. “You will need to speak the warrior’s language.” 

I did not think I was very good at it, and after two weeks of speaking only  _ gonasleng _ I felt my ears were about ready to fall off if I heard “English, Indra!” one more time. But at the next village the children I met were impressed with my skill in the warrior language, I acted as their interpreter when the leaders of the village spoke in it. They were sad to see us go. 

When evenings came my mother acted as my first, teaching me the ways of combat. We had nothing more than the two swords that were always on the backs of my parents, so we practiced with sticks and fists while my father started the fire and prepared our meal. 

When the fire was roaring and the food was hot we sat down on the earth and listened to  _ Nontu _ tell legends that his grandparents had told him when he was young. Stories of Martin the King, The Moses Harriet, even the Great Washington who had led the old nation of America to freedom. 

My favorite stories were those of my home; the tales of the heroes in the Great Fire, and the valiant leaders who managed to round up the survivors and join them into the alliance that became our empire. I dreamed of becoming one of those great leaders; the type that brought warring factions together and united people just by recognizing the need for those things. I wanted to be a person that  _ Nontus _ told their  _ yongons _ about at night. 

When I went to sleep under the stars with my head in the crook of my mother’s neck and my feet warmed in between my father’s legs, I dreamed there was a sword sharp in my hand, and  _ gonasleng _ fell perfectly off my tongue.

* * *

 

 

We reached my father’s home in the heat of the summer. The walls rose up suddenly before us, and we reined the horses back. My mother and I stared up at the fortifications; they were like nothing we had ever seen before, all bits and pieces of materials from before the Great Fire.  _ Reinkru _ villages never had walls. There was no need, for we were surrounded by leagues and leagues of our own people. Those walls -although they were not the highest walls I would look upon in my life- towered above us. I wondered how it was my goofy, smiling father could have grown up in a such a miserable-looking walled-in village.  

“I don’t like it.” I said quietly. 

_ Nomon _ shushed me. “It is your father’s home, do not judge it before you know it.” 

“Ey!” Nontu called to the imposing gate. “Are the people of Trigeda here?” 

A head poked up over the edge of the wall, the hair was brown and long, but the skin was light, lighter than ours, at least. There was a curling mark tattooed on his face, and I wondered at the significance of it.  _ Nontu _ had a similar tattoo on his cheek, but it was smaller. 

“Yifro!” The man called, his voice betrayed the smile that was hidden under his beard. “You’re Yifro, right?” 

_ Nontu _ nodded vigorously, grinning. “Yes!  _ Sha! _ Open the gates!” 

“ _ Sha _ !” 

The head disappeared only for the gates to creak open a few seconds later. In front of us was Tondc; my father’s birthplace. 

“Welcome home, Yifro.” The tattooed man stood in front of us. “It has been too long.” 

_ Nontu _ dismounted from his horse and strode forward to embrace the man. “Gar.” He said. “It is good to see you again.” When the two parted I saw there were tears in his eyes. 

Gar seemed to finally notice my mother and I. He squinted at me briefly and then at my father, glancing back and forth between us for a few seconds before he laughed. 

“Your child _? _ ” He asked.  _ Nontu _ nodded. 

“Indra.” He introduced me. “And my partner, Jeid.” He gestured to  _ Nomon _ , I felt her straighten behind me on the horse. 

“ _ Heya _ .” She said. 

Gar grinned and nodded, his enthusiasm apparent. 

“You can stay with me, my son, Jaxon, went to Polis with his first. I have plenty of room.” 

“ _ Mochof _ , Gar.”  _ Nontu _ said, he turned to us. “My girls _ , _ come see my home.”

* * *

 

 

We spent almost a year in Tondc. I did not like it at first, and I think my mother felt the same. Everything there was different from what we knew. Their words were different, their traditions were different, even the animals they hunted were different, but eventually I grew to love the patchwork huts and the gruff people who inhabited them. I came to see the beauty in the towering trees, the drooping vines, and the ways of the Trigeda.

I trained with the youngest children of Tondc, still too small to be a warrior’s second. We spent our days rampaging around the village, attacking each other with wild howls and whooping with joy at the end of our games. One autumn day we held a particularly intense game of  _ Maunon en Trigeda. _ Those of us playing  _ Maunon _ had twigs to throw, like the weapons the real Mountain Men had, while the children who played  _ Trigeda _ had sticks to use as swords. If they were hit by our twigs they had to act as if they were wounded. Three twig hits meant they were dead. 

There were five of us in total on the  _ Maunon _ side, battling against six  _ Trigeda _ warriors. We had picked our teams based on certain skills, and ours was centered on our ability to speak  _ gonasleng _ . If our  _ Trigeda _ opponents did not understand us, it would be that much easier to plan against them. 

“We have to take the right wall.” Tikal announced when the five of us approached our agreed-upon base. “It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to sneak up on them.” 

“She’s right,” Talik, Tikal’s twin sister agreed. “There are too many in-ter-sec-ting passages from all the other sides.” 

I had no idea what  _ intersecting _ meant, but I nodded wisely with the others. The other two -a skinny boy called Yorker and a fierce girl named Andred- began to discuss strategy with the twins. I listened in, occasionally giving my eight-year insight, but they were all older than me, and I was the outsider. I was to listen more than speak until I proved my worth.  

Five minutes of bickering later, and our battle-plan was approved on all sides. Talik and Tikal scrambled off to find good vantage points from which they could defend our base -which was Gar’s hut- and Andred, Yorker, and I set out to find and capture the  _ Trigeda _ base. 

“Think you can keep up,  _ Reingada _ ?” Yorker asked me with a smirk, twirling a twig around in each hand as he walked. 

“Yeah,” I said, oblivious to his jab. “Why not?” 

Yorker guffawed, instantly dropping a twig to clap a hand over his mouth so that he didn’t let out any more noise. Andred elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Ow! What was that for?” 

“Indra is our teammate,” She chastised, in a voice that was more mature than nine years. “We are supposed to work with her, not be mean to her.” She turned to me. “I apologize for his idiocy; he’s the best at English so he thinks he’s the best at everything.” 

I stared at her, unsure if I should be grateful or insulted. I settled on amazed bewilderment, and then let out a soft laugh. 

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can handle stupid boys.” 

“Hey!” Yorker protested, but Andred shushed him with another jab to his ribs. 

“Ow!” He whispered loudly. 

“Shh!” 

The three of us fell silent, gazing around us for any disturbances in the routine of the village. Our opponents were out there somewhere, and it was quiet, too quiet…

“Ahhh!” 

The Trigeda group was upon us; four children with warpaint covering every inch of their skin. Andred, Yorker, and I abandoned our twigs in favor of fists, and soon the Trigeda group did the same. 

It was a miraculous fight, the most realistic one we had ever played. Across the way I saw Talik fall dramatically to her knees in front of a Trigeda boy, holding a hand to her chest. 

“I’ve been slain!” She yelled. “Tikal! Avenge me!” 

I was only able to see Tikal begin to pelt the boy with twigs before another Trigeda child was upon me, brandishing a huge branch like a longsword. 

I held my hands in surrender. I had no way to defend myself, but she kept coming at me until suddenly Andred was in front of me, wielding a stick she had taken from the ‘body’ of a Trigeda warrior. She danced around the other girl with an unnatural grace, tapping her swiftly and cleanly on every limb and finishing with the point of her stick at the girl’s throat. 

_ “ _ Surrender _.”  _ Andred said, her voice was chilly and hard like ice. 

I watched the girl fighting Yorker ‘stab’ him in the chest, then she looked around and noticed Andred holding her comrade at stick-point. She began creeping up silently, stepping over the giggling bodies of ‘fallen’ friends and foe alike until she was approaching Andred with her stick raised. 

“Watch out!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, startling all three of the girls who were still ‘alive.’ I grabbed a stick from the ground and charged the third girl, roaring like a  _ pauna  _ on its way to a meal. I was fury, I was rage, I was battlelust. 

The girl tried to get me in my ribs, but I parried the way my mother had shown me and knocked her stick away. My stick went flying with it, though; my grip had not been strong enough. For a second we stared at each other, each wondering if the other would go farther, then the war cries came out of us again. I ran at her and she at me, we collided head-on, grappling each other to the ground. She was older than me and bigger, but I was quick and had nimble fingers. I utilized every twig and scrap of metal and lump of dirt that I could find, flinging it all in her face until she was surrendering under the threat of a handful of horse manure. 

“I’m done! I’m done!” She said frantically. “You win!” 

I threw the manure away and rose to my feet, breathless and panting like a dog. Across the clearing Andred was still fighting the last  _ Trigeda _ girl. They still had their sticks, and they fought like they had swords in their hands. It was a wonderful display of swordsmanship for two so young, and I found myself mesmerized watching Andred’s lithe body dip and lunge in her swordplay. 

They fought for what seemed like an eternity, while I and all the ‘slain’ warriors watched on. Andred and the other girl were so matched for skill that I thought the fight would never end. We would just have to sit there in Tondc for eternity, watching the two girls battle out the fake war between  _ Maunon _ and  _ Trigeda _ . 

Andred gave one last ferocious strike, backing the other girl toward a puddle of mud in the middle of the road. She let up just as the girl’s foot stepped in it, then quickly lunged forward to force the girl to lean back. The  _ Trigeda _ girl lost her footing in the mud and fell on her bottom, her stick was flung too far away for her to reach. Andred’s weapon was at her throat. 

“Surrender _. _ ” Andred said again, I was struck by the harshness with which she uttered the words, but then the girl nodded. 

“I surrender.” 

Andred looked back at us and grinned, eyes landing on me as the only other one standing. The victory in her eyes was worth every scrape and bruise I’d acquired. 

“We won!” I shouted. “We won!” 

Andred shook her head. “Not yet,  _ Reingada _ . We need their flag!” 

“You mean  _ this _ flag?” Tikal was crouched on the roof of the nearest hut, a dirty red sash wound through her fingers. 

I looked at Andred and grinned, she grinned right back. 

“Victory!” She shouted, and suddenly Talik, Tikal, and Yorker were beside me, and Andred ran to me and wrapped her arms around me, nearly squeezing the breath out of my lungs. 

“We won!” She screamed in my ear, and though I felt my hearing would never recover from the close contact of her screech, a pride rose up in me. “We won! _ ” _

“Good job,  _ Reingada _ .” Yorker said with a smile, clapping me on the back. The grin on my face stretched to an impossible length. 

“ _ Mochof _ ,” I said. “Anytime.” 

That night my mother saw the evidence of the battle. I apparently had more cuts and scrapes than I’d thought. 

“Indra?” She asked while sharpening her sword. “What happened to you?” 

“Hm,  _ Nomon _ ?” I replied absentmindedly. 

“You are hurt.” She pointed out. “Everywhere. What have you been doing?” 

“Playing.” I said innocently. 

“Indra.”  _ Nomon _ paused in her work to stare me down. “What were you playing?” 

“ _Maunon_ ,” I looked at the floor, suddenly ashamed to have been making light of our people’s greatest enemy. “ _En_ _Trigeda_.” 

“ _ Maunon en Trigeda _ ?” I could not see my mother’s face, but the amusement in her voice was plain. My confusion grew. 

I nodded.

“And which were you?  _ Maunon ou Trigeda _ ?” I stole a glance at her face, her expression was gentle for once. 

“ _ Maunon _ .” I answered softly. 

She started up her sharpening again. “You know, Indra, that you are neither  _ Maunon _ nor  _ Trigeda _ , right?” 

“Yes,” I confirmed, although I didn’t quite understand what she was asking. Of course I wasn’t  _ Maunon _ , they were the enemies, more like monsters than people. But were we not living in Trigeda land, surrounded by Trigedakru, and following the Trigeda ways? Even  _ Nontu _ was  _ kom Trigeda _ , the only thing that wasn’t Trigeda was my mother. 

“Will you be ready to leave when we go back?”  _ Nomon _ ’s smile was gone from her face, and I had to squint to see the gentleness that had been there. What did she mean? 

“Go back?” My voice was a whisper, barely there. 

_ Nomon _  nodded. “Yes _ ,  _ little wolf. We will go home soon, we have been away long.” 

Home. She meant back to the  _ Reinkru _ , I knew. But  _ Reinkru _ meant almost nothing to me. Tondc was my new home, and my people were there; Yorker and Talik and Tikal and Andred. They were mine, that life was mine. Nothing could change that. 

“I don’t want to go back.” I wanted to tell Nomon how I felt, but at the same time I was afraid to. I didn’t know how to properly explain that I liked Tondc more than our nameless village. The trees and the moss and the deciduous forest suited me more than our endless pines, I could feel that in my bones. I was meant for this place, for its ramshackle beauty and crumbling structure. And I had yet to see Polis,  _ Trikru’s _ marvellous capital that I had heard so much about. Gar’s son Jaxon had come back three months after we arrived in Tondc, and the minute he returned he had launched into a glorious description of  _ Trikru’s _ Polis. 

* * *

 

Many an afternoon Jaxon sat next to the well with eight or so children surrounding him, and he would describe Polis in its entirety; it’s bustling market full of artisans and traders and food vendors, the sprawling hills that surrounded it, and the great tower in the center of it that looked over all the city. Jaxon described it all to us. He described the scents and sounds. How the harsh words of the  _ Azgeda  _ and the soft, lilting voices of  _ Floukru  _ flooded the traders’ district. How the fuzzy horses of the north and the colorful birds of the south filled the market with sound and activity, especially when a flock of birds got loose and half the southerners tripped over themselves trying to round them up again. He laughed when he told us of that. 

Everything Jaxon said was like a dream, Polis seemed a place of legend that we only journeyed to in Jaxon’s stories, and the best part of it all was the Commander’s Tower. 

“Over a thousand hands tall!” He told us. “From any place in the tower you can look out and see all of Polis. Sometimes I could see all the way to Tondc!” 

“No you couldn’t.” Yorker said, always skeptical. The rest of us shushed him, but Jaxon laughed. 

“You’re right, little warrior,” he said. “But still, you have never seen as far as I could from Heda’s tower.” 

We gave the appropriate “oohs” and “woahs.” I watched Andred’s eyes widen, as if she could see the view that Jaxon depicted even though she had lived in Tondc all her life. 

“And Heda?” She only whispered, but Jaxon heard her and -ever good with children- he turned his full attention on her. 

“What about Heda, little warrior?” 

“What was he like? Did you talk to him?” 

“I didn’t talk to  _ her _ ,” Jaxon said, his expression became one of reverence as he spoke. “But I was allowed to witness her council.” 

“Really?” Talik gasped. 

“What was it like?” Yorker asked. 

I leaned forward in my seat. Jaxon nodded at Talik. 

“Our Heda is strong and brave,” he said. “And she rules us with courage and wisdom.” 

“What did she do?” Andred was on her feet now, eyes shining. “What does she look like?” 

“She is tall,” Jaxon said. “And dark, like Indra.” He nodded to me and a surge of delight rose in me. Heda was like me! 

“Her eyes are black, and her voice is low. When she looks out from her window in the tower she can see all the way to Azgeda. 

“No way!” Talik gasped, Tikal whistled. 

“Yes,” Jaxon was grinning. “Heda is different from regular Trikru. She hears more to know the whispers of our enemies. She sees more to know when her people need her.” 

“And she feels more!” Andred piped up. “To be able to love all of  _ Trikru _ .” She noticed the rest of us staring at her and shrunk under our gazes. “ _ Nomon _ told me that.” 

Jaxon reached out and ruffled her hair, some of the long strands caught in his fingers. 

“Your  _ Nomon  _ is right,” he said. “Heda loves us.”

* * *

 

 

Oss’s house was the barest home I had ever seen. The most it gave by way of luxury was the huge mound 

of furs that were piled on the bed. There was a fur for every color of the forest.  _ Oss _ picked up the topmost one and handed it to me when I admired its bright orange color. 

“Fox.” He said. 

“You killed it?” 

“ _ Sha.” _

I sat on the floor next to the fireplace. There were no logs, only ashes, and the hut was chilled by the rain that pounded on it. I clutched the foxfur to me and watched as Oss went about tidying up his home. He emptied out a box that had been under the table and slid it toward me. 

“This is yours, to put your things in.” 

I stared at it; I was empty-handed.

“When you will have things to put in it.” He amended. 

I nodded and pulled the box closer to me, settling it beside me, opposite the fireplace. Oss was watching me when I looked up, his brown eyes gentle and sad. 

“Will I start to train tomorrow?” I asked, uncomfortable with the silence. 

Oss nodded. “If you want to.” 

I nodded back. “Okay.” 

He stood up and picked up the sword that had been lying on his bed, sliding it into the sheath on his back. He walked to the door, but turned back to me before he crossed the threshold. 

“I have to see to your parents,” he said. “Stay here.” 

I nodded again and watched as he left. Only then did my pride crumble and I began to cry.

* * *

 

 

It was not morning when I woke. The hut was dark, and in the fireplace only the glow of smoldering embers remained. My feet ached where they had been cut by the things I had broken at home, and the rain still pounded outside, a steady beating that filled the silence. From across the room I heard a moan.  

I froze in my spot where I lay, pulling the foxfur up to my chin. The sound chilled me, and I was reminded of my parents even though I had not heard them moan when they died. Was it Oss making the sound? 

The noise came again, and I flung the foxfur aside, tiptoeing in bare feet toward his bed and ignoring the sting of the cuts on my feet. My heart was in my ears, drumming in time with the rain. 

Oss was curled up and sleeping, so covered in furs that I couldn’t tell where his head was in the dark. He moaned again. I jumped back, afraid of waking him, but he remained asleep. 

_ Maybe he has nightmares… _ It would make sense; Oss was the veteran of many battles with the southern nomads, I had no idea how many close friends he’d seen die before he became our Oss. I was suddenly ashamed of my own actions. Oss had probably lost more people in his lifetime than I’d known in mine, I had no right to think myself the more unfortunate one. I rarely ever had nightmares. 

He moaned again. Without thinking I pulled up some of his furs and climbed underneath them, nestling into his warmth like I was used to doing with my parents. Maybe my presence would help him sleep; his presence certainly helped me. 


End file.
